Scottish Executive

Community Care

Robert Brown (Glasgow) (LD): To ask the Scottish Executive what targets it will put in place to enable the effectiveness of the £100 million additional resources allocated to support home caring to be monitored.

Malcolm Chisholm: Following discussions with COSLA, local authorities were invited to enter into local outcome agreements with the Executive and to provide draft agreements by 15 October with the aim of having final agreements in place by November. Monitoring of the arrangements will commence in March 2002 and progress will be evaluated from summer 2002.

Health

Miss Annabel Goldie (West of Scotland) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive whether there has been any increase or decrease in the number of reported incidences of persons receiving infected blood transfusions in each of the last 10 years.

Susan Deacon: This information is not held centrally. However, reported and confirmed transfusion-transmitted infections are now rare. I have written to you separately giving contact details for the National Co-ordinator of Serious Hazards of Transfusion, which was set up in 1996, to monitor reports from hospitals across the UK on major transfusion related complications.

Health

Miss Annabel Goldie (West of Scotland) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive what proposals are currently being considered to compensate victims of infection caused by receiving an infected blood transfusion.

Susan Deacon: I announced on 29 August that, following consideration by the Scottish Executive of the judgment issued in the High Court in London in the case of A & Others v National Blood Transfusion Service and others, the Central Legal Office (CLO) has been instructed on behalf of NHSScotland to:

  identify analogous actions in which proceedings have been raised in Scotland in terms of the Consumer Protection Act 1987 in which alleged transmission of the hepatitis C virus by blood product would appear to have occurred on, or after, the date the Act came into force on 1 March 1988.

  Where claims meet all of these criteria, CLO has been instructed to carry out substantive investigations with a view to establishing legal liability. These investigations would include consideration being given to the issue of prescription and limitation actions in terms of the Consumer Protection Act 1987.

Health

Mary Scanlon (Highlands and Islands) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive what specific steps are being taken to meet the national target of reducing the pregnancy rate among 13- to 15-year-olds by 20 per cent by the year 2010.

Malcolm Chisholm: The £3 million Healthy Respect National Health Demonstration project, currently running in Lothian, has as one of its aims the reduction of unwanted teenage pregnancies. The project, which will be independently evaluated, seeks radically to transform teenage attitudes to sexual health and sexual relationships, with a particular focus on marginalised groups such as young people in care.

  In addition to measures taken by health boards and other interests at local level, the Executive is also funding the setting up by Brook in Scotland of four new advice centres for young people, the first of which is expected to open later this year.

Roads

Mr Adam Ingram (South of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what procedures are in place to consider representations regarding additions to or deletions from the trunk road network.

Sarah Boyack: Any representation suggesting the alteration of the trunk road network will be considered on its merits.

Shellfish

John Farquhar Munro (Ross, Skye and Inverness West) (LD): To ask the Scottish Executive what the Food Standards Agency Scotland’s algal toxin monitoring box testing capacity is for (a) king scallops, (b) queen scallops and (c) mussels.

Malcolm Chisholm: The Food Standards Agency has advised me that current testing capacity for the Fisheries Research Services Marine Laboratory (FRS MLA) in Aberdeen, for offshore boxes, is 10 boxes per week (20 samples of king or queen scallops). This capacity is based on FRS MLA completing algal toxin analysis and reporting results to Food Standards Agency Scotland, within a guaranteed seven day turn-around. Mussels are harvested and analysed from mainly inshore sites and are not included in the offshore testing programme.

Shellfish

John Farquhar Munro (Ross, Skye and Inverness West) (LD): To ask the Scottish Executive whether the sample collection and laboratory testing capacity of the Food Standards Agency Scotland has restricted the lifting of any Food and Environment Act 1985 closure or shucking restriction imposed during 2001.

Malcolm Chisholm: The Food Standards Agency has advised me that the lifting of Food and Environment Protection Act Orders, and shucking restrictions placed for the harvesting of scallops, can be restricted in relation to sample collection through the need to await relevant reductions in algal toxin levels and due to poor weather conditions. There is a limit to laboratory testing capacity and this is taken into account when assessing priority for both lifting restrictions and the continued monitoring of open boxes.

  Following are statistics on parliamentary questions and answers for the period from 20/08/2001 to 14/09/2001

  


 


Scottish Executive


Presiding Officer


Total




Total questions asked


587


3


590




Total questions answered


549


1


550




  


Total non-recess questions answered (breakdown)




Answered within:


Scottish Executive


Presiding Officer




0-14 days


20


0




2-4 weeks


0


0




4-6 weeks


0


0




6-8 weeks


0


0




8 weeks and over


3


0




Total answered


23


0




  


Total recess questions answered (breakdown)




Answered within:


Scottish Executive


Presiding Officer




0-28 days


399


1




4-6 weeks


84


0




6-8 weeks


29


0




8 weeks and over


14


0




Total answered


526


1